On Wednesday morning, under pressure to do so in time to headline a Signing Day ceremony at his school, Cass Tech running back Mike Weber decided on Ohio State over Michigan by the slimmest of margins. On Thursday, Weber's position coach and lead recruiter for Ohio State left for the Chicago Bears. Weber:

He also removed all references to Ohio State from his profile.

Michigan fans jumped on this because it's in our interest that every recruit and coach of a recruit and parent of a recruit believe Urban Meyer a slimy salesman (he's not). Ohio State fans jumped to defend it by characterizing Drayton's departure as a surprise to everyone including Drayton, and equating it with signing a junior transfer quarterback after Gentry's LOI was in.

When Ohio State does something shady (or not shady but treated as such in the weird morality of college sports), Ohio State fans will be the first to tell you that everybody does it. They're right to a degree, but the degree is the difference between how much heat the Earth radiates into space, and the Sun. Regardless of whether Urban knew Stan Drayton was leaving beforehand, or if Drayton knew he'd get the job until then, what's clear is they didn't let Weber know the coach he was committing to was likely to walk away as soon as they had his signature on the dotted line.

Purposely fraudulent or unbelievably unfortunate timing, the real lesson here is that coaches are free to make the best decision for themselves, and players are manipulated into signing away that liberty.

And for nothing. Signing Day, really, is only the first day of a period that stretches through April that schools may receive official commitments, in the form of a "Letter of Intent." That letter is merely a non-compete agreement in which the school the player signs with provides nothing in return. The scholarship offer is a completely separate deal.

Since Weber already sent in his LOI, his choices are to stay at Ohio State, wait a year for the LOI to expire then transfer and wait another year, or ask Ohio State to release him, in which case he still has to wait out a year under NCAA transfer rules CORRECTION: would be free to choose any school. Ohio State can hold him to the LOI, or release him only to schools they choose. They can also rip away his scholarship for just about any reason.

The recruits are finally starting to get wise. Roquan Smith is still unlikely to end up at "Michigan University," but he was moments from sending in his LOI when news (that reporters meant to embargo until after Signing Day) broke that his coaches might not be there. Because he waited, he can now take another week to consider his options.

A Florida commit's father yesterday explained why his son is holding off too, tweeting "…Florida making too many coaching changes this is not a game it's my son's life." He followed up in response to angry idiot-who-tweet-at-recruits fans with the central moral question:

It's not, except in the warped morality of the NCAA and its apologists who think "amateurism" means players shouldn't be entitled to the same rights as every other citizen.

Signing Day is a total boondoggle. Recruits who have any sort of leverage should never sign a LOI, and should never feel pressured to commit on Signing Day. They should ask to sign a financial aid agreement only.

Meanwhile the NCAA should look at allowing players to transfer and play immediately if their head coach or primary recruiter leaves the school. It would prevent players from getting bait and switched, give coaches more job security, and ultimately plateau coaching salaries as schools come to value longevity instead of flashiness in their hiring of them.

How Karan Came. Michigan did get a highly rated running back in the class. Brian already linked to it in yesterday's recruiting post but if you missed it, Karan Higdon's coach is a MUST READ for anyone interested in how this process plays out:

I immediately called the Michigan football office and spoke with a secretary. I told her that there was a running back in Sarasota that may be worth a late look and she advised me to send and email with his profile. I sent his recruit profile and his HUDL highlights. I was contacted almost immediately afterwards and spoke with Chris Singletary. The first thing he asked was what type of kid is Karan and what his grades were.

Meta: Cumong! Brian's eye dialect for "come on!" has an origin. That diary is way more investigative and thorough than you thought it was when you saw it floating on the sidebar all week.

It also got me thinking about just how old this site is, and some of the other characters from Brian's section to be immortalized in these pages. Like "UNACCEPTABLE!" guy. And the narratively adorable moppet from the first great MGoBlog game column. That kid is probably in an English lecture right now. Which reminds me: happy 10th birthday, MGoBlog, belatedly (it was December 4).

Softball has been initialized. This year's team will have to overcome the graduation of a great class, but returns shortstop Sierra Romero and three candidates for best pitcher in the nation. South Bend Wolverine has your full preview, to which I'd like to add my take.

A great pitcher pretty much owns in softball, and Michigan is filthy rich in them. The lefty/righty combo of Haylie Wagner and Sara Driesenga could easily be the best duo in the country if both seniors regain their forms after somewhat disappointing (for them) 2014s. Sophomore Megan Betsa is due for a season on par with the best of the Wagner/Driesenga era. They also added the top pitching prospect in the nation in Tera Blanco out of California. Like Driesenga, Blanco is as dangerous at the plate as on the mound.

And there's Romero. As a sophomore, Sierra was one of three finalists for softball's version of the Heisman. Most of that is her Cabreraian bat, which is already bopping out national records. My favorite of those: Career Grand Slams—the NCAA record is nine; half-way through her Michigan career Romero already has seven (tied for third all time with 2005-'08 Wolverine Samantha Findlay).

Last year Sierra also finished tied for seventh all time for walks in a season with 67, 20 of which were intentional (the most you get is about 250 plate appearances so that's quite a lot of walking). Since Michigan graduated her protection and two top-of-the-order bats, we could end up seeing that number skyrocket if Coach Hutch doesn't find some hitters to fill the bases ahead of Romero and clear 'em behind her. If she does, this is a national championship team.

A Special Hell for Terrible Michigan Coaches

There is a place where they man-block with Patrick Omameh, run Denard Robinson under center, and never use counters. In this place they run a 3-3-5 defense that only ever rushes three and tells its middle linebacker to line up a foot in front of the guard whose job it is to put the middle linebacker in that spot. When they punt, and they punt quite often, they only use two gunners, because that's what NFL rules say.

If you haven't tried Draft Kings before, give it a shot. We chose to play tonight's college basketball games even though Michigan's next game is Thursday because it's a more interesting slate otherwise. Also: weird guys.

It's a $2 entry (free for first-timers) and a $70k pool—the top 9,000 entries get paid out.

Foote in mouth. Larry Foote claimed, forgivably inarticulately, that Michigan's problem is we don't recruit enough kids who are used to a tougher road. I found a site that will take places in a spreadsheet and plot them on a map, and did so with the 2001 (Foote's and my senior year) and 2014 rosters, minus non-Kovacsian walk-ons. Yes there are errors still. Go ahead and zoom in.

It sometimes does weird things like put Warren, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula and I am fixing those one by one as I spot them. Findings:

Lloyd had four guys from the Memphis area while Hoke did much better in Southwest Ohio. That's where those guys are from.

Carr was able to penetrate deep into SEC country while Hoke has only managed to pick around the edges.

Hoke gets more kids out of private schools and magnet schools (e.g. Cass Tech) than Lloyd did. This is because when I was in high school the big prep programs weren't recruiting as much as they do now, so talent wasn't as concentrated.

The differences are minor and speak less to changes in Michigan recruiting than general trends. It all amounts to mostly nothing.

Off the top of my head, the players Michigan has who come from 1% means are Wilton Speight, who's a redshirting freshman right now, and Matt Wile, who burned his redshirt because of Hagerup and waited patiently for three years behind a guy who probably shouldn't have been on the team. Foote's starting QBs were Tom Brady from a nice place in California, and John Navarre from Cudahy, Wisconsin, which is suburban Milwaukee on the Lake Michigan coastline. Meanwhile Devin Gardner went to Inkster, which doesn't even exist anymore. If Foote had been 13 years younger it's likely he'd have been picked up DCD (Mo Ways), OLSM (James Ross) or Cass Tech. Talent comes from all over; Michigan's talent comes from where it used to.

Butterfly.

Bye week is wife day, as per Six Zero's family tradition. The espoused among us are encouraged to move back from the football for a moment and pay service to whatever your weird marital tradition might be. If she'd like you to lose an entire Saturday to outlet stores, that's rough, but she's worth it. If your wife would rather just get random butterflies from you and spend Saturday helping you rake leaves, then you're married to the bestest in the westest. Congratulations only me.

[Jump: on the Wisconsin coach we can't steal and the LSU one we probably shouldn't]

Diaries: That and the TourdeFrance in three parts. Mich1993 did a table of comparison of 4*+ upperclassmen at various positions. In 2013 there were nine; this year projects to 14 and 2015 projects to 30 as the Hokesters grow.

THE GREATEST NOTHING GAME EVER

South Bend Wolverine asked the assembled masses to pick a non-rivalry, non-major game from Michigan's past that you just remembered very fondly. Weirdly he then says the Air Force game—you weren't terrified of losing to Air Force after getting wrung out by Alabama? Other folk picked moderately big games, like the 1999 Citrus Bowl. And State games. C'mon, this isn't nam. Here's rules:

Disqualified: lots of MSU and Notre Dame games. Penn State games when PSU was ranked in the top 10 at some point. Bowl games Citrus or higher. Last-second wins (AC's catch vs. Indiana, etc.) Things remembered for personal reasons.

My favorites were all games when things went totally better than expected. Like the first Nebraska Big Ten game, when Martin forced a pitch and at the end we were chanting "Beat Ohio!" Another guy mentioned 1999 Purdue, to which: YES THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Tiller had been tearing up the league with the spread-n-Brees (47 pts vs UCF, 28 in a win over ND, 58 vs CMU, 31 vs NWern), and with all due respect to the legion of defensive backs from that team who are friends of this site, our secondary was a weak point. But not that day. That day Carr came out in a 3-3-5 and Todd and Whitley and Patmon and Tommy and B-Will decided to punish every receiver who dared come near them. The guy who remembered it being a nice day is wrong; it was rainy.

If we're extending to other sports, the Molly McGannon game. Whoever's idea it was to raise funds to name the student section the Molly McGannon Memorial Student Section, get on that already.

BRIAN GETS WINDY

Time to bust out the On the Road.gif

How's that for a geographic headline? Double-entendre baby. I should get paid for this. Like Brian got paid for taking his powerpoint presentation to a meeting of the grand association of Chicagoan alumni of Michigan. They also had Chris Balas; tell me you wouldn't pay to see Brian and Balas together, fielding questions about unspeakable things known only to the Fort.

Tentatively scheduled Monday the 18th in New York and Tuesday the 19th in Philadelphia, and currently talking to Cleveland. We plan on having a Marlin event at MGoPatio again this year, and something like that again at Notre Dame with Jared and the Sports Power Weekends trip, and Chicago again for Northwestern.

PREACH BO!

Pelini, not our Bo. Apparently he lost a recruit to Ole Miss the way people always lose croots to Ole Miss, and he decided to say/not-say. Then he blamed the parents. Don't you just love Pelini? I mean, he's kinda right: big-time recruits might be content with a scholarship and the benefits of playing in 100k stadiums, etc., but their parents who sank tens of thousands of dollars into training these athletes don't get diddly, and yet have a very large influence. Whatever happened with Cam Newton, nobody's disputing at least that his dad called asking for a ridiculous sum, correct?

Blame: the system, of course, but honestly if the players could get paid upfront, the bag men would still drop bags with the parents. As a solution, I'd just legalize that too: boosters can give money to whomever they please, so long as they report it, and maybe a portion goes to fund an NCAA branch that can police this stuff.

MICHIGAN SOUTH UPDATE

At 2:09 of this video Chad Henne throws a pass to Denard Robinson. Also in favor of your interests, they do a flash of Bortles and then a long segment on clearly-the-starter Henne, where Chad mentions they're using a lot more audibles (complexity favors the elders).

Lament, for 2013 is not done with you, human being with a Michigan soul dong. Per everybody, last night one of those awesome things you were hanging your hat on when the universe was all like "I'm going to put you in a Copper Bowl that doesn't even call itself the Copper Bowl" is also no longer happening:

No. 2 ranked WR George Campbell has decommitted from Michigan. He decommitted Friday, didn't want it out for awhile but that happens.

Campbell (hello post) is a top ten overall sort of recruit and like Peppers, is one of the guys Michigan could use as leverage to convince other top recruits that the program's on the upswing. He's teammates with 2014 OL commit Mason Cole, who is probably hiding in a bunker right now.

[zzzZZZZWAP!]

Hope? Tim Sullivan wrote last night that his status is "no longer a solid commitment" and that he's yet to call the coaches (not paywalled), postulating this could be a ploy to take in the visitation process. Lorenz notes that Michigan is "still being considered" before mentioning another receiver M may look at. Hope is nice, but I think it's a formality.

[SPLONK!]

I don't have to remind you to be nice on Twitter, or ruthless with those who aren't.

This isn't a stage of grief but it is a stage of life: at some point during the long process of disintegrating into a grotesque version of yourself, you stop asking rhetorically when the kids will visit, stop being horrified at the exponential indignities, stop trying to convince everybody you're still just as capable as ever, and just decide to be tickled to death at anything good. You're past caring what ol' so-and-so thinks, and save your opinion that Alabama is something to be ashamed of, not commit to, for the people at your bridge game.* When the doorbell rings you expect it to be Death; if it's the grandkids, we'll order subs and won't that just be grand!

MGoBlog, you've reached the Appreciation stage. Right now on the board you can see a thread for appreciation of Jabrill Peppers, and appreciation itself, and one for Al Borges, and I even made one for you, dear readers. Where are the rest? Where did they come from? I'll allow you this peek behind the curtain:

Poor Ace. We'll put that one with Treadwell's and Levenberry's. And Armani Reeves and Sam Grant and Josh Garnett and Bri'onte Dunn and Anthony Standifer (the second time) and all of Tim's 2011 opponent previews, and some weirdness Brian puts up every once in awhile. Okay ONE example:

(•_•) <) )> ooohh / \

I don't know. But that's your user content this week: people admitting our program feels every year of 134. Next time we have Ohio State over let's wear our ratty sweatpants and make fun of their latest girlfriend. What is she 25? Really.

Having two 5th year senior tackles don't seem to matter at all. Having an average of 1 year in the program among the three interior guys is not good, but it's not death either: the second star to the left over Michigan is UCLA. Gandalf the Maize, you are the Diarist of the Week. Also I like your wizard hat.

You probably already saw the incredibly detailed one by Space Coyote where he disagrees with Brian over whether Kerridge should be able to make that one block. I have a unifying theory: the part of the brain that has the ability to release the enzymes with which to formulate excuses is often destroyed in the process of playing or coaching football. Ask a coach sometime about the Alabama game last year; he'll probably tell you that was on execution too.

The anecdotal approach both addresses where our expectations are too high (they can't run simple stuff AND not be predictable) but mostly confirms the general complaints about stubbornness and misusing the personnel.

Etc. I think Brian linked to the weeklies in previous posts, but if you missed it here's parallels between Michigan and the Soviet Space Program. Dragonchild wants to bring helpful signs for the other team that say "WE'RE RUNNING" or "WE'RE PASSING" that our fans can use to prove just how predictable they're being. Has nobody considered what would happen if Borges just starts calling whatever's on the signs?

There are five lines up here, and room for six under each M—seven if they don't have header rows beneath. So that's maybe 26 years before we have to worry about how to fit more scores on the jug gain. How did we beat them 42-13 this year?